Do You Love Yourself? FREE Self-Love Reminders Printable PDF below! I used to loathe myself. Love was a word that didn’t compute. I could never truly accept love because I didn’t know how to feel it for myself. As babies we are born happy, loveable and wanting to love. But what happens when we experience feelings of neglect, criticism or abandonment in our childhood…. that we feel the hurt so strongly and intensely as children we appoint ourselves to blame and internalise our pain? As we grow, a part of us begins to believe we are unworthy of love…. That inner child who felt unsafe and
READ MORE →When Dieting Takes Over From Living Being on a diet is like forcing your real life body to squeeze into a Barbie and Ken sized dollhouse. Not a great fit if you really want to feel at home there. Does weighing all your food, watching your food portions and eating to the clock actually satisfy your hunger? What about when the rebel in you says, “Stuff it! I’m so hungry and I hate this food. I’m going to eat that cake anyway”? And what if you can’t stop at one piece after a week of willpower and restriction, and end
READ MORE →Body Hate, Dieting & the Scales Audio Interview Thank you Robyn Patton Intuitive Nourishment who interviewed me recently about body hate, dieting, the scales & vulnerability. Time for some #realtalk so we can get comfortable with uncomfortable feelings and make space for learning to navigate them. Let me know what you think! V xo About Viki Viki Thondley is a Mind-Body Wellness Specialist and qualified Holistic Counsellor, Food, Stress & Lifestyle Coach, Meditation Therapist, and Eating Disorder Recovery Coach who inspires women to shift from limited thinking, low self-esteem and restriction to whole-self nourishment, body confidence and whole food healing. Recovered from bulimia
READ MORE →Overcome Negative Body-Image Here’s how just one of many clients did it! Sometimes in my coaching practice I need to get down into the pit with a client… really sit down in the mud with them and wade through the shit in their lives. It’s my job to hold steadfast as an anchor for them while they experience losing control or embracing their fear. Whatever the overwhelming emotion is, I’m always willing to go to the depths with them in order to help guide them back out of it. Not many traditional therapists allow themselves to do that, with the idea
READ MORE →Body Image and the Dreaded Scales So after I shared my previous Vulnerability post today THIS happened…… Warning – Real and honest body talk here after they made me get on the scales… Well, actually I chose to. It was either get on or don’t donate. #BIMGA #bodyimagemovement Posted by Mindbodyfood with Viki Thondley on Monday, October 26, 2015 About Viki Viki Thondley is a Mind-Body Wellness Specialist and qualified Holistic Counsellor, Food, Stress & Lifestyle Coach, Meditation Therapist, and Eating Disorder Recovery Coach who inspires women to shift from limited thinking, low self-esteem and restriction to whole-self nourishment, body confidence and
READ MORE →VULNERABILITY ALERT… (spoiler, I’m not perfect) Yesterday I felt like a fat, inauthentic, hypocritical failure. I know I’ve gotten into some bad habits this year as I’ve struggled to balance a growing business and demand for my time with now building a second training institute, being a supportive partner, a loving and present step-mum, and delivering consistent energy and enthusiasm at my classes, workshops and live events. Somewhere in there I forgot to PRIORITISE myself. I forgot that my body doesn’t like missing breakfast, and especially does NOT like skipping lunch or being delayed to the point of feeling famished.
READ MORE →I really dislike labels. I especially dislike labelling the way we eat, the way we look, and the way we behave. “I eat clean. I am fat. I am a perfectionist.” Why do we need to make judgement instead of making way for growth, understanding and change? Labelling the way we eat is a dangerous tendency. We get so caught up in whether we’re doing it right or not. It develops a righteous thinking attitude, that for some can translate into control: If I can control my healthy diet, I can control the way I feel. Strong, intelligent and capable
READ MORE →Who’s in Control? You or Food? QUESTION for you: Why are you so afraid to let go of controlling your food? Is the answer something like, “Because I’ll put on weight!” So you’re afraid of putting on weight and that’s why you control your food so rigidly? Ok. So what if you do put on some weight? Will it kill you? Will you suddenly become unlovable? Will your family and co-workers disown you? No! Maybe your body might put on a little weight in an attempt to trust you enough to nourish it regularly before it can regain a sense of
READ MORE →Is Food Controlling Your Life…. Or are you just eating your feelings? So many people have an unhealthy relationship with food. They habitually use it for comfort, distraction and punishment instead of true nourishment, information and energy for the brain and body. Your relationship with food is usually a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself. When clients come to me for food issues, they are totally exhausted from fighting back emotions and living inside their heads. No matter how hard they try, they just can’t seem to get a handle on their eating! Is this really the way
READ MORE →When Hunger Isn’t Real… We eat for all sorts of reasons: when we’re angry or sad, stressed or festive, starving or hormonal. Most people over-eat, and usually when they weren’t actually hungry in the first place. Eventually, distracted from the stress of daily life and worries, it becomes impossible to distinguish between hunger that is real and hunger that is fake. There are actually several different types of hunger, because our drive to eat comes from various sources that often don’t have anything to do with physical hunger – that real, true hunger that begins as a rumbling sensation
READ MORE →Is Self-Worth Found In the ‘Perfect’ Sized Jeans? During a little spring clean of my denim jeans drawer last week I was inspired to create a video for my YouTube Channel and bare my bedroom clean-out with all my social media subscribers. Apparently I was oblivious to just how many pairs of denim jeans I had accumulated and held onto over the last ten years – waiting for the day I was ‘thin enough’ to wear them again. For some reason every time my Beloved would help me clean out my wardrobe (you know, with the approving nod or the toss-it-out shake) I
READ MORE →HOT FM Interview I love talking on the radio, especially going into the studio and sitting around all the equipment that I would have a ball playing around with! I wouldn’t know what I was doing but I know I’d have fun! This morning I spoke on the radio with Hamish and Tanya from HOT FM 100.7 in Toowoomba. The interview was by phone and is a quick chat on women, food, dieting and emotional eating. It’s nice and short at four minutes long so it won’t take a lot of time for you to listen in while you’re working or pottering
READ MORE →What are you really hungry for? Cravings, needs and desires… We all have them, but how often are we actually attending to our cravings, needs and desires? When we don’t feel fulfilled in our lives, these three areas will be left hungry for whatever it is that will fulfil, satisfy and satiate us on a deeper level. Yet, because we aren’t always aware of what we truly crave, need and desire in all areas of our lives, it’s far easier to reach for pleasure inducing foods that give us a short-term feeling of being happy and having what we want.
READ MORE →Are you a stressed out eater? What kind of eater are you: Fast, medium, slow? I used to be a fast eater – I didn’t know how to eat slow. I lost touch with when I felt hungry and never seemed to stop when I was full. Are you aware when you’re hungry? Do you register when you’re full? Eating is a necessity to sustain energy balance and fuel. But it’s definitely a requirement that is viewed as a chore when we’re busy and too tired or rushed to nourish ourselves. A familiar scenario I often hear from new clients
READ MORE →The Brain and Addiction Following on from last Blog article about Cravings, you now hopefully have a better understanding of the difference between “body hunger versus mind hunger”. In short, one is genuine and the other is playing tricks on us. Let’s look a little deeper into understanding the parts of the brain that are activated when we crave specific foods. In 2004, participants in a study were asked to think about a favourite food. The participants’ resulting fMRI images displayed three primary areas in the brain that lit up: the hippocampus, insula and caudate. [Source: Monell] The hippocampus, located in
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